She cooked it on the rare occasions she had people round for dinner, when she got out the Tyrone crystal hock glasses and red candles. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. In the absence of aubergines, for example, my mother made a decent if robust moussaka with sliced potatoes. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged.

It was better than nothing, but I always thought we had been excluded from the best part; sitting around the table. Most of them are on a teak bookcase in my kitchen, but there are some in the shed, the bedroom, the living room, the utility room and the roof space.My mother served hers over patna rice, a variety you rarely see now that came in a dusty plastic pouch. The recipes and instructions were very easy to follow and and there was a picture of every dish with each recipe. My mother cooked her way through everything life threw at her, from Christmases and birthday parties to the Ulster Worker’s Council strike, from a single book. Published in 1970 and written by Mary Berry and two women I’ve never heard of since, (a similar fate befell the two women who worked with Julia Child on Mastering the Art of French Cookery) it boasts “over 300 quick and easy recipes all illustrated in full colour”. For the very many women like her who worked in the home, busting themselves to make things lovely for the rest of us, the Hamlyn All Colour Cook Book was all they needed.

I picked one of these books up from a local book stall as a gift for a friend and had to have one for myself. A swallow of Canada Dry from the bottom of a can, or pink, maggoty prawns from a teacup in the fridge.The rice pudding sprinkled with demerara sugar that came out of the oven smelling as sweet as baby milk, with a skin like tortoise shell you had to crack with a spoon. We pulled flitters of chicken from a cold thigh or drumstick, our noses wrinkling at the piquant smack of Coleman’s French mustard and Worcestershire sauce.